Free transfer of DNA data from Ancestry to Family Tree DNA!

Finally a way to give our Ancestry.com cousins a chromosome browser! If you have not been able to convince them to use GEDmatch, perhaps it will be easier to convince them to transfer their data to Family Tree DNA – that wonderful and very reputable company which started the personal genome testing revolution. This is a more private way to compare data than at GEDmatch since only your DNA matches can see your information and compare where they match you. There is a free transfer which gives you an account with just your matches. Or for $19 you can transfer to a full featured account there with all your matches and ancestry composition (called MyOrigins).

This transfer is possible since you already have the raw data from the DNA test. The link for uploading your results from another company (including MyHeritage) is at the top left under DNA Tests [update 30 sep 2017] .

To download the raw data from ancestry, you need to click on the settings button next to the person whose data you want on your DNA homepage. You can get the raw data for kits you manage or have been shared with you as an “editor.”

Transferring My Brother

So I decided to try it out by transferring my brother’s data from ancestry to a free FTDNA account, since I already had downloaded his raw data a while ago. It went smoothly and I immediately got an email with his login userid and password. I was told to wait an hour for his matches. So I decided to write this post while I waited.

Next I exported a GEDcom from my genealogy program with 12 generations of his ancestors and 4 generations of their descendants in order to upload that to FTDNA. So I logged into his new account and clicked on Family Tree under My DNA. The page that came up had a big red message pointing to the little gear icon on the bottom right telling me I could upload a tree. So I did. Interesting that family tree DNA gave me a warning message that I would be overwriting his tree when there wasn’t one there. However I liked that when I went to the family tree page again it asked me if I wanted to show deceased people in the last 100 years or not. I selected the option to show them to my DNA matches only.

His matches came in after about an hour. Not surprisingly he matches me and Dad and some of our close relatives. I was able to select those relatives and look at them in the chromosome browser. But the contact them via email does not work nor the in common with function nor can you pull up a family tree even when you know there is one. Those require an upgrade to the paid version (only $39) which you will see the link for when you try to email someone or initiate another not yet unlocked function. [UPDATE: 16 Feb 2017 – you can see all your matches for free and the upgrade to use all the tools is only $19]

Refer Four People and Get an Upgrade to a Full Account

Another way to get an upgrade is to refer four people.

My brother, aunt, my cousin, and my husband all got the four referrals for the upgrade. Once you get the four it gives you a message that it will be 1-2 business days before the account is finished processing. This has worked now; so thanks very much to all of you, my dear readers!

43 thoughts on “Free transfer of DNA data from Ancestry to Family Tree DNA!”

I wonder if you use this free transfer option and are given an FTDNA account, whether this transferred file would now be considered a FTDNA file? And if you’re able to then download this converted file, I bet it could be used on DNAGedcom which only accepts FTDNA and 23andMe files. Wouldn’t that be nice.

I uploaded 6 new DNA kits to FTDNA. When they advertised the closest 20, it’s actually not quite accurate because new uploads aren’t included in that even if those uploads are of close relatives. Also, the “free” program does not benefit those who already have accounts on FTDNA because they aren’t privy to matching the new uploaded DNA. I was pretty disappointed. I did get one free account but again, his closest matches aren’t shown to him.

Jeri, I think the idea is to give you a free look at your matches in the existing database to see if it is worthwhile paying the $39, which is an amazing bargain.

This has the advantage for them of increasing the size of the ftDNA database which was lagging behind the other two although it has more British and Israeli and other jewish

The ability to compare to anyone you match in the chromosome browser plus the nice in common with tool are the big pluses. Also you contact your matches via email so have a much higher response rate than anywhere else. But again, the folk who have tested there are usually interested in genealogy

The reason those of us who love genetic genealogy prefer the other DNA sites is that we can see where in our DNA a match is and compare that to others we match by using a chromosome browser. However no other testing site will search the trees yet.

There is a utility called Gworks (the old pc based version is called GCU) which will try to do the tree matching for you using GEDcoms that you must upload. It is at http://DNAgedcom.com – that site used to be able to grab GEDcoms from family tree DNA but when they changed the tree there that feature stopped working. Wait a week and then I will blog about it once it is back.

In order to confirm that a segment of DNA is from a specific ancestor you need three people who share that DNA and that ancestor, known as “triangulation” – see this article at the ISOGG wikihttp://www.isogg.org/wiki/Chromosome_mapping/en
and also look through some of the posts here

Sorry you have to pay for each one, although if you have five to do that can be done for the price of four. Four referrals get you a free “unlock” so you would not pay for the first one and then refer your own extra kits. There are places you can post your link to get the unlocks as well. One is listed here, the other is over on facebook, look for groups with ftDNA in the name.

What I’m wondering is… I had a recent DNA test completed by Ancestry and I also have a test pending from FamilyTree. Should I wait for the FamilyTree results to be posted before I upload the Ancestry test?

I had noticed in an earlier post that you mentioned uploading 12 ancestor gens and 4 descendent gens. Is that a pretty standard size tree to use on these sites where you are not actively working on the tree itself? In other words for matching purposes.

Chris
Yes pretty standard size for DNA matching although I no longer put anything but direct ancestors to prevent confusion on these sites.
Quick because this is my work time of day so very online … and willing to procrastinate

Has this blurb now posted at the FTDNA transfer site been there very long?

*Please note that AncestryDNA™ has recently changed their file format. The updated version is currently not compatible with our transfer program, however we are working on accepting the newest version in the very near future.

Nothwithstanding the above, I received the message below when I tried to upload an AncestryDNA raw data file to FTDNA:

It’s a very new blurb.
It’s been about a week since people started reporting problems and we all realized that new ancestry results were coming in on the new chip which has more health SNPs. I will try to blog about this soon. GEDMatch is able to handle these new kits uploading

I thought I uploaded my raw DNA from Ancestry.com but No matches appear I went back and paid the $39 and still no matches yet when I go to upload DNA again it says I already uploaded DNA . I thought maybe I didn’t do it right so I went to Ancestry.com and downloaded my raw DNA to my computer again. Why can’t I see any matches at all?

So my mother-in-law gave my husband and me the funds to do our DNA for Christmas. I still have not ordered any kits. Don’t know which one to do. Still trying to understand all this. She did Ancestry for herself her husband and one son. I am looking for family links. Trying to still convince my father to participate so I can get a better match on his side. If I do Ancestry, I know I can upload to Family Tree for $39. But if I do Family Tree, can I upload to Ancestry? What are the pros and cons of this so I can make a decision. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

I have an AncestryDNA test. I’ve heard that the AncestryDNA tests aren’t the most accurate. Say I were to upload the raw data from that to FTDNA (and pay $39)–would I get the same results from that versus if I paid for a new test with FTDNA? In other words, is the issue with the AncestryDNA test a problem with the raw data or with the site’s analysis of that raw data? Thanks!

Al of these personal DNA tests are accurate for close family, fuzzy for more distant family, and less accurate for ancestry composition which is still a new science. There are differences in the way ancestry analyzes the raw data which removes many matches, mostly not good ones.

You can get a free look with the transfer and these days it is only $19 to unlock

If you suspect that there were too many errors with your initial test, you can use the kit analysis at GEDmatch by uploading there and then disease if you want to get your DNA done again.

Do you know if I need to make a new account for myself on FTDNA to transfer my Ancestry DNA to FTDNA? The reason I ask is I made an account for my DAD and bought him the Y-137, I think and anyway, I was hoping I might be able to load mine on that account and put it under me on the family tree, so I could compare some of the basic results. Or do I need a separate account for each person?